Brown: Politicians swayed by public opinion

Politicians surf the wave of public opinion.

By Lawrence Brown

capecodtimes.com

By Lawrence Brown

Posted Aug. 15, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By Lawrence Brown

Posted Aug. 15, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

Politicians surf the wave of public opinion. Vladimir Putin’s Russians think he’s The Man – and they’ll follow him anywhere, especially into the Crimea, Georgia and the Ukraine, where solidifying Russia’s grasp on the natural gas supply forces Western Europe into dependency.

Obama’s got a trickier challenge. First of all, unlike Putin, Obama’s critics are free to use the airwaves. Obama knows the majority of his countrymen were glad to be out of Iraq and have no taste for re-engagement. At the same time, if Iraq becomes another failed state, Obama is likely to be blamed.

One could well look back and miss Saddam. Not the man ... just the stability. When Clinton left office, Saddam Hussein was still in power – but caged by American air power that patrolled his skies and took out potential hazards at will.

One could only sympathize when the Syrians rose against Assad but as chaos descended on Syria, outside extremists poured in. Ever the opportunist, Assad cried that radical Islamists were trying to take the country, and gradually, that became true.

Faced with such complications, Obama has been cautious. His electorate won’t tolerate a return of American ground forces. If we send weapons, we’ve got no guarantee they won’t end up in the hands of our enemies.

For every toppled dictatorship, we see not an Arab spring but simply brutality in religious clothes. Islamic extremism addresses the grievances of colonialism and exploitation but doesn’t solve them. But then, neither has the West.

There is always the chance that development can open opportunities for everyone, but not when elites arrange economies for their personal enrichment. If America and the West were the true champions of the little guy, things would be different – but we’re not. Once, when Obama first took the presidency, the Third World lit up with hope, but it faded rapidly.

We have neither the patience nor the resources for nation-building in far places. From Saigon to Kabul, we have propped up corrupt governments of our invention and then begged for time to get their armies fighting as well as their more committed adversaries. It’s hard to face it, but some places are so deeply dysfunctional they have become leaky tires. We can pump and pump, talk our friends into taking turns at the pump – and they just go flat when in exhaustion and discouragement we finally stop. Then people suffer and we feel like failures, because sometimes, we are. We can’t do everything.

Obama looks across such a bleak landscape and hesitates. Putin’s people will applaud him for just taking off his shirt. Almost half of America will detest Obama no matter what he does. But he ought to do this: take out ISIS.

They represent what actually hit us on Sept. 11. They are al-Qaida on steroids, Osama bin Laden’s dream of a caliphate made flesh ... homicidal, maybe genocidal, given the chance. And much of ISIS is on the roadways in convoys.

If Obama wants to make the world a little safer and maybe buy what friends we have left some time to get their acts together, we should use our air superiority to reduce ISIS in any way possible.

If they take refuge in urban areas, concern for civilians suggests we simply wait for them to take the roads again to reduce them further. This can’t be done incrementally with warnings and pleadings between steps. It must be swift and forceful at a moment when ISIS forces are most exposed. Like now, for example.

Understand, every military action is undertaken with the same hope. “Just this one last time,” we say. “Then we’ll be finished at last.” It’s not like that, and humanity will get its hearts broken again and again until we change the game for real.

How do we organize ourselves politically, economically and spiritually to make the lives of ordinary people more secure and happier? Becoming the true champion of ordinary people here and abroad is the unexplored pathway – and the greatest hope for better outcomes – but we’re not on it. We cannot export this project until we have an overwhelming consensus to attempt it here at home, which we don’t.

What is continually apparent is that since so often we don’t even get the things we want most, to imagine that human felicity will be realized as the byproduct of some other pursuit – be it corporate profits or spiritual purity – is beyond unrealistic. It’s tragic.